What I Don't Understand

You may wonder why I  don’t understand this, but I really don’t: why, out of 200,000 shrinks in America very few reach into science to prop up their theories.  Why is it that every time we read about a new theory, such as mindfulness,  it is concocted out of whole cloth by the therapist?

I was thinking about that today in reading about research  starting in Science 1997 about stress hormones, which activate  us.  And what makes their rise?  Lack of love in animals, lack of licking and grooming.  In humans not enough kissing and hugging.  I  will take a simplistic notion here—cortisol.  It is a complex matter but one thing we do know is that lack of warmth in humans raises those levels; that is why my beginning patients are uniformly high in cortisol levels.  And after they feel deeply unloved their levels lower radically…..because they feel, and  feelings lower levels.

But here is the point; lack of love activates us and that means faster metabolism, more brain activity, faster heart rate and higher blood pressure.  We go to a doctor and he cannot see the “lack of licking,” so he prescribes drugs to stop the activation.  Usually the drugs that slow down the neural message from one synapse to another. Meanwhile the child is now eight years old and he is diagnosed as ADD. He cannot concentrate or sit still in school.  He is activated, and if therapists know their science they would look right away at what is causing that activation.  They need only look at animal  studies to find the answer. Everything is souped up when we are not loved enough and we are activated to find it where we can.  There  are myriad of other factors but this alone should help us understand an overactive brain.

What the Science journal was emphasizing was the long term effects of deprivation.  And how is  this done?  By methylation.  Now, just this fact and no more than that should inform those treating ADD sufferers about why children are so activated.  And that in turn should tailor a therapy toward dealing with this activation.  Up to now that has mean medication to slow down neural impulses so the message of pain cannot  reach higher brain levels.  But surely we can do more; we can go back and find the imprint and the origins of methylation and stop the activation in its tracks, which is what we have done.  Doesn’t that seem logical, an overly active child  is revved up due to a cause.  We don’t just look at the end product, the excitation, but the generating source.  Lo and Behold!  We find the answer.  And it never is about pushing back the activation/pain

All I am trying to point out is that there is simple science out there that can give us so many answers.  We can learn from neurologic science and we can change our treatment based on their findings. Alas, too often the research remains left brain and cannot inform the right of how to apply it to therapy.  So what the therapists know cannot be applied to their work.  The patient gets more of the same-- repression and repressive drugs to hide the source.  Is that therapy?